Odor identity decoding by mitral/tufted cells in the olfactory bulb from large-scale pooled datasets

The mechanisms by which the olfactory bulb encodes odor information are fundamental to our understanding of sensory processing in the brain. Here, we analyze large-scale pooled electrophysiological recordings and respiratory data from awake mice to explore how mitral and tufted cells (M/Ts) represent odor identity. Our results demonstrate that, while odor-evoked changes in firing rate are relatively sparse in the awake state, the temporal firing patterns of M/Ts, particularly those aligned with the respiratory cycle, carry significant information for accurate odor decoding. Importantly, the reliability of odor identity decoding improves as more neurons are sampled, and integrating information across multiple respiratory cycles further enhances decoding performance. These findings highlight the essential role of temporal coding and population dynamics in olfactory processing, offering new insights into the strategies used by the olfactory system to represent complex sensory stimuli.